Our Family Vacation to the Smoky Mountains June 10 - June 18 2011
Friday: We left Stoughton 6pm on a Friday night. Unfortunately our lexus was not as roomie as last year's RV. Maybe we'd have more room if we didn't have so many electronic devices......matt's laptop, 2 cell phones, I touch, I pad, 2 dvd players, james' DS and enough electronic cords to drive one crazy. I guess we need to get our screen fix before we get lost in the wilderness. After only 5 hours of driving we opted to stop and get a good night's rest at a Comfort Inn in Southern Indianapolis. Lucky matt got to sleep with the bed hauger Noelle. I on the other hand got to sleep with the night talker James. I thought for sure Matt would have stayed up all night on the Internet or in the fitness room...he had two large cups of caffeinated coffee hoping he could challenge himself to drive through the night. Jill spoiled it for him...I just couldn't get comfortable & fall asleep in the car.
Saturday: James and dad were the first to get up this morning. We all had ourselves some continental breakfast in shifts and then decided to chill some before checking out. Dad & Noelle swam like fish and Jill and James ran like Cheetah's. James wanted to test out his running speed....he made it up to 6.0 mph on the treadmill! We checked out of our hotel at 11. We are now headed to Mammoth Cave. In the car Noelle speculates....when we go on vacation it seems we always are doing something. While vacation may mean relaxation for some I think we fall on the other end of the spectrum. We stopped in Loisville, KY for lunch at Golden corral. The kids were in heaven with all you can eat popcorn shrimp, French fries, fried chicken and ice cream sundaes. What the heck...we are on vacation, right? It took all I had to keep my mouth shut. When we arrived at mammoth cave the temperature was 92 degrees. Fortunately our cave tour was a much cooler 52 degrees. This is supposedly the largest cave in the world encompassing approximately 390 miles. The kids thought it was pretty cool. We almost didn't go cuz the kids were being themselves, acting not interested. It didn't take much convincing once they felt the cool temperatures and saw the awesome views. After our cave adventure we hoped in the car and headed East. We made it to Jamestown, KY, Cumberland lake Campground, One of the largest manmade lakes in the US. We set up tent and not 5 minutes goes buy and noelle is at the next site making friends. James is off in the woods cutting firewood. we decided to do a camp stove dinner....Mac & cheese & ramen for matt & kids and apple, peanut butter, and beef jerky for Jill. Next we decided to checkout our campground. We found a gorgeous nature trail going along the edge of the Lake. The highlight of the hike were the millions of fireflies glowing in the twilight sky and the discovery a waterfall at the end of our hike. When we got back to our site the kids wanted to start a fire. Jill was beat so she hit the sack. That was at 9pm. It is now 3am and I haven't slept yet. Our tent is supposedly a 4 person tent....I'm not sure I believe it. It is probably 100 degrees in there. It started lighting and thundering so matt & I made our way out of the crowded tent to get some fresh air and Jill some food. Matt is on an adreline rush....Jill on the other hand....I would die for some floor space in one of these neighboring RV's. Too bad I don't make friends like Noelle. She probably could be sleeping in the neighbors RV no questions asked. Oh well...I'll figure something out. I better try and get some zzzz's or tomorrow won't be too fun with Jill-Jill.
Sunday: Jill woke up early and decided to go for a walk to the State Dock boat launching area. This lake is known for house boat vacations. Maybe a vacation idea for next year? We had some oatmeal cooked on our camp stove and decided to pack up. The kids wanted to skip rocks and check out the gift shop at the boat launch. Next we stopped at the wolf creek dam to get some family photos. Our bellies were grumbling so we hit a Subway in Albany, KY. Down the road a couple miles we got our ice cream fix at Dairy Queen. The next several hours driving Noelle and Matt sang Taylor Swift songs over and over again. When burnt of Taylor Swift Noelle switched to watching Hanna Montana over and over again. After hours of driving we finally hit the edge of the smoky mountains. We took the road with 300 bends. It curved all over the place. Matt and the kids loved it....I on the other hand was feeling a bit queezy. We got to Bryson City and fell in love with the quant downtown. As we approached the deep creek campground our love faded some. It kind of felt like a Wisconsin dells. The reserved tent site we had was so close to nearby campers. It was a bit much for us. Rather than abandoning the campground all together we opted to rent a log cabin. Our cabin is called The Elk...very cute and quant. The kids love the loft...Jill loves The bed and matt loves the shower. We are only here 2 nights and then it is time for backcountry camping! It was late when we finally arrived at the campground so we decided to go to town for dinner. We ate outside at a nice Italian restaurant. We chatted with some locals and then hit the grocery store. After returning to the campground we took a walking tour of the place. This is certainly a kids heaven with the goat petting, tubing down the river, volleyball net, and jungle gyms. We all decided to hit the sack early tonight. We have a long day ahead of us tommorow.
Monday: Jill woke up first and went for a short walk. I passed a local rugged backpacker headed toward town with what looked like his home on his back. Interesting part is me seeing him again 8 hours later on the same country road headed back into the mountains. It just makes me wonder what his story is?? Anyway, once back to the log cabin in the AM the rest of the family was awake and we had ourselves some quick breakfast. We headed to the train depot to board our Great Smoky Mountains train ride. The 90 min ride was just gorgeous. Our car had open windows allowing us to really capture the experience with all our senses. Next we hopped on a bus to go to the entrance point for our whitewater rafting trip. Before taking off on our raft trip we had a picnic lunch of bbq beef & coleslaw. Our raft held 6 people plus our guide, Mike. What an awesome gig he has....spring thru fall he does these whitewater rafting trips in NC and the rest of the year he runs another outdoor adventure center teaching young kids how to mountain bike, hike, & kayak in Dubai. I thought it was pretty funny how our guides thanked us for going on this trip because it was another day they didn't have to go and get real jobs. We shared our raft with a couple from FL. Noelle and James sure were troopers. Noelle got the award for getting the most splashed..... James was the bravest in deciding to voluntarily swim in the 50 degree water. Only one person fell in....not one of us! The man from FL tipped in as we were doing the level 3 rapids called Natalahala Falls. Fortunately he didn't get hurt...just wet & cold! Our ride encompassed level 2& 3 rapids. Just challenging enough for 6 and 8 year olds. The kids had a blast & James says he wants to do level 6 rapids....not with me! After our rafting adventure we headed back to the cabin for some chill time. Matt & I took turns running and then fired up our camp stove for burgers & corn on the cob. We headed to the stove to pick up some items and headed to the Smoky Mountains park to burn off some of the kids energy. Thank goodness for the 1/4 mile up-hill hike. We found a waterfall & took some photos. Our ride home from the park we stopped at a local ice cream shop...imagine that :).
Tuesday: This morning we packed up all our gear for our big back country camping adventure. We chose to do a route that was 4.75 miles to our campsite. It was on the North Eastern side of the smoky Mountains in TN. To get to our starting point we had a hour plus drive from Bryson City through the smoky mountains. What amazing views! We decided to get some lunch in Gatlinburg, TN at the Mellow Mushroom. Gatlinburg reminded us much of Wisconsin Dells. It had a strip loaded with shops, restaurants, and people!!! Matt sure had ants in his pants...he just wanted the escape feeling of backcountry. After saying goodbye to civilization we made our way to the tour entrance. We started in at 2:30pm....made it to the waterfalls by 4pm and our campsite by 5:30pm. We saw maybe a dozen people. We didn't see anyone after we passed the falls. Just us and nature. The kids did awesome. Their camelbacks loaded with water and power-up's (starburst) to keep their energy going. They were pumped about the whole experience. However maybe a bit timid when Matt left their sight. A few times in the evening Matt had to escape to go get firewood...Noelle asks me, "Jill-Jill, do you know the way back?". One way to summarize our the whole experience--- deep nature family bonding. Once to our site we worked together filtering our water from the stream, putting up tent, finding firewood & making a fire, cooking dinner, washing dishes in the stream, and hanging our food and trash on a pulley system 100 feet above camp. A highlight of our evening was watching the kids entertain us with singing & dancing skits--pretending they were on America's Got Talent. What an awesome evening away from screens! Matt later tells me as we were entering our tent to go to sleep he looked out in the distance and saw about 4-5 sets of eyes glowing at him. Good thing he didn't tell us till after the fact...I would have had even worse nightmares about bears. At one point I dreamt a bear was pawing against our tent...I woke up panicking...only a dream. Fortunately the kids slept good that night.
Wednesday: we packed up our gear and headed back. The way back we cut 40 minutes. Our trip back was mostly downhill. Not to say that is easy...carrying 40 pounds on your back can sure add to your workout. Once back we were all dreaming of showers. Matt swore his shirt was going to rot if it smelt any worse and noelle...she won the award of the dirtiest. Her clothes, arms, legs, and face were covered in dirt. James looked the same as he always does...barely sweat. I on the other hand had so many bug bites on the backs of my legs I could scream. We were pretty famished when we were done. We loaded the car and headed for Ashville. We stopped for subway (3rd subway of our trip) and found ourselves a rental cottage at The Pines. We have all showered and we each feel like a thousand bucks. No one is moving too quickly. I'm thinking ice cream is certainly on the agenda here soon. Sure enough...we were all on the same page with that idea. We went to "the hop" for our treat and then decided to do a driving tour of Ashville. Good thing we weren't still hiking...it started hailing...1/4 inch in size! Ashville seems to be a very liberal town. Lots of organic coffee shops, consignments, vegetarian catering, veggie drive through's, a two story bus made into a dessert bus. I'm sure Matt may may describe it a bit differently....of course these are the highlights through Jill's eyes. We headed toward the biltmoure hoping to do a drive by tour. The $65 ticket price per adult quickly changed our minds. We saw the entrance! The shopping and restaurants nearby all had similar appearance....even the hardee's & mcdonalds were nearly uniform in color...dark green & gray. With hail still coming down the idea of brousing the cute downtown shops didn't sound too appealing so we decided to catch a movie....soul surfer. It got a thumbs up from all of us. Once back to our cottage lights were out early.
Thursday: We were scheduled to meet Todd our instructor from Fox Mountain Guides at 9am. We got a 2 hour basic rock climbing lesson. The lesson took place in Chimney Rock State Park. From the top of the 100 foot rock we were climbing we could see awesome views of Lake Lure. The first hour our was purely instruction. Then it was time to climb! James and Noelle did great. They each got 2 turns. James made it ~40 feet up and Noelle ~60. This was matt's first time climbing. I had a feeling he would like it...especially with gear involved...I was right. Matt & I both made it to the top. After our lesson we drove to the town of Lake Lure. We found a cute restaurant, The Boar's Head Grill, right on the river overlooking Chimney Rock. After lunch we headed to the Lake Lure's swimming beach. The kids swam, made sand castles, and went down the water slides. Matt & I each took turns swimming. After a couple hours we needed a bit more mov't so we retuned to Chimney State Park for another hike. We fueled our way up the trail with ice cream bars. The 0.75 mile Hickory Nut Trail ended at a 404 foot waterfall. The kids (including Matt) had a blast putting their heads in the waterfall. Our way back to Ashville we stopped at a local gift shop with many homemade gifts. James bought a knife, James & Noelle both bought a glass window ornament for their mom. I bought some locally made sweet honey. Tonight the kids were actually requesting a home cooked meal, imagine that! Matt cooked us some steak on the grill, broccoli, fresh bread & butter, and French fries for the kids. After dinner the kids entertained us with some more skits in the garden. The evening was still young and Jill had another place she wanted to go before leaving Ashville. We surprised the kids we a trip to Double D's. It was a double decker furnished red bus serving drinks & sweets with indoor seating. I had the most awesome vegan banana maple walnut cookie, dad had strawberry cheesecake, and the kids had vanilla ice cream with 2 types of chocolate sauce. This bus was something you'd probably see in the Willy street area of Madison...kinda hippy like. After all getting our sugar highs we had to walk off our energy. We did a walking tour to see the happening downtown life of Ashville. Our tour ended in a city park with Noelle running trough water fountains and James having us time him running across the park. Noelle senses competition and soon joins in. Then matt surprised us with his ability to walk several feet on his hands. As dark was approaching we decided to call it a night. Honestly I don't even remember going to bed!
All & all the trip was a success. It sounds like the highlight of the trip was the rafting adventure. The least favorite was the car time. Now it is time to start brainstorming next summer's trip. Pacific Northwest in August??
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